


To Wear Flowers on Your Sleeve

by tsunderei



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Brief description of scars/surgery, Empath, Hanahaki Disease, High School, Kageyama Tobio-centric, Light Angst, M/M, Magical Realism, Mention of past Kageyama/Kunimi, Misunderstandings, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:34:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24790939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsunderei/pseuds/tsunderei
Summary: Kageyama had his first love uprooted while he was still in middle school. He’s always considered it a forever missed opportunity, but sometimes it takes somebody else’s feelings to recognize your own.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 48
Kudos: 345





	To Wear Flowers on Your Sleeve

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I don’t think I’ll ever be capable of writing an AU like this…  
> Me: So anyway here’s almost 6k about it, enjoy!

The uprooting left him with scars – scars in the shape of two narrow lines, crisscrossed with faded staple traces, curving from his shoulder blades all the way down to the lower end of his ribs. It looks like he had two large wings detached from his back.

What they really dug out of his ribcage were flowers.

When the disease has progressed so far in its course that death is only one winding root away, the infected person usually undergoes a procedure called ‘uprooting’. This permanently removes all traces of infection. ‘Blossoming’ happens when the disease spreads aggressively, while ‘withering’ is the state of natural healing and recovery without surgery; when you’ve been cured through requited love. Only a few people are lucky enough to escape Hanahaki by withering. Kageyama wasn’t one of them.

He was in middle school when he got infected, at the tail end of his senior year. He was on the brink of a great future, destined for big volleyball achievements, and out of shame and fear he tried to hide his symptoms for as long as he could. He spent every morning cleaning soil off the front of his shirt, scraping wrinkled petals out of the bathroom sink, but when his blue hydrangeas evolved into grasping roots, with strong stalks forcing their way up his throat and nearly choking him right there at the dinner table, it became impossible for him to keep blossoming in secret.

His parents immediately decided that he was to undergo surgery. No one should pass away from something so easily removable at the age of thirteen.

Kageyama agrees it was the right choice. They were just emotions after all. No matter how real they were, or how intensely he felt them, or how much they made him suffer, they were gone the moment the doctors cracked him open and uprooted the offending flowers. He has no recollection of what romantic feelings are like, he probably never will again, but most importantly Kunimi is none the wiser of what he endured for him.

The flowers didn’t even leave a void. Now there’s just phantom soil and working organs filling the cavity in his chest. At the end of the day he spat hydrangeas for nothing. It’s no big deal.

**

After Kageyama recovered, his aunt brought him along for what she claimed was a ‘ceremony’. The elderly woman wasn’t so much his real aunt as she was just some distant relative of his father’s. Their extended family has always been small on both sides and she was the only one available and willing when they needed help with the aftermath of his grandfather’s passing.

She insisted that because Kageyama had experienced the intensity of unrequited love at such a young age, they had to make sure he wouldn’t come out of it traumatized. And not only that; his affections had also been directed at another boy, which in her opinion presented itself as a little problematic. The latter she didn’t say out loud but it was heavily implied.

Kageyama honestly thought it sounded sensible at the time. His parents were working late as usual, his sister was busy with her own life, and his grandfather wasn’t there anymore, so he shrugged and tagged along.

Ironically, said ‘ceremony’ turned out to be more traumatizing than the ordeal of unrequited love. It was actually a purification ritual, specifically for him. He doesn’t remember much of it. There are fragments in his memory, flashing images of the priest waving the paper shaker over his head, causing an intense sense of dread to rise up in him. He thought these rituals were performed on houses and other objects in order to get rid of evil spirits and bad luck. He didn’t realize his innocent hydrangeas fell under the same category.

For several weeks after that ceremony he had nightmares about eating soil. He’d obsessively shove big fistfuls of wet, dark dirt into his mouth, over and over again, and he’d wake up grinding his teeth on imaginary gravel.

**

Kageyama is barely a month into his first year at Karasuno high when he suddenly begins to notice everyone else’s emotions. It’s not general awareness, or his improving communication skills, but a literal sensation of experiencing something that doesn’t belong to him.

It’s subtle at first, like the faint buzzing of an out-of-tune radio station, where distorted voices overlap with white static, forcing spoken words to sizzle sharply into the ether. But there’s also something _more_ to it, something that crowds his thoughts the moment he enters the school building, or prods at him during pop quizzes, or nudges him out of focus at volleyball practice. It’s annoying to say the least.

Kageyama wonders if it’s a late side effect of his surgery, despite the pamphlets not mentioning anything about a richer emotional life, and certainly not becoming sensitive to that of others. It should’ve been the other way around. Maybe it’s an odd reality twist caused by the purification ritual, where one backwards movement of the paper shaker or one misspelled word in the chant flipped a switch deep inside of him.

Whatever the reason, it’s a ghost of his infection. The hydrangeas are being thrown back at him, except they’re fleeting and he can’t hold on to them. It’s making his ribcage itch and flutter in familiar ways but all he can do is take it in and process it to the best of his ability. He seems to be stuck with it for now.

Through other people he discovers that high school is largely a negative place. There’s a lot of stress and anger roaming the hallways, a lot of anxiety occupying the classrooms. To his disappointment, much of the same goes for the volleyball club. Daichi’s heavy responsibility, Sugawara’s quiet inadequacy, Tsukishima’s sour disdain – none of those emotions feel good. They stick to Kageyama’s skin and remain piled-up high on his shoulders even when they’re not directed at him.

Only Hinata is different.

Whatever Hinata is feeling at all times is always as loud as his voice, if not louder. Any insecurity that might be bothering him is instantly drowned out by a can-do attitude that’s larger than life. He is ten thousand constantly exploding suns, most of the time detonating directly in Kageyama’s face, which again sets him off in ways he never expected. He gets so caught up in it that he can’t help but chase him, almost purely on instinct, like a mindless racetrack greyhound.

Kageyama sensed this in him when they first met in middle school. A defiant fire flickered briefly to life when he yelled at him from the other side of the net. But back then he had his hands too full with flowers to properly process it – or rather, he had his chest full.

It’s only now, with his flowers ripped out of him and this sixth sense installed, that he realizes how intensely overwhelming Hinata can be.

Kageyama can’t stand him.

**

Hanahaki is rare in itself but common enough for people to fear it. Requited love is a powerful but complicated cure, something that can’t be prescribed or bought or manifested through positive thinking. There’s a lot of old stigma connected to uprooting; the implication that you weren’t good enough to love back. Those who had the procedure rarely talk about it afterwards.

So Kageyama has made it a habit to turn his back against the wall when changing out of his clothes. He’s quick about it, he’s in and out of the clubroom in minutes, sometimes seconds, and nobody questions this. He’s obviously just eager to play volleyball.

He knows he’ll probably get too comfortable and slip up at one point. He just never thought it would happen in Hinata’s presence.

Their late evening practices are pretty much a luxury, considering how he never had anybody to share that kind of dedication with in middle school. They always leave him exhausted and starving and he’s nothing but thankful for it. He pulls his damp shirt over his head, easily ignoring thoughts of the pile of homework waiting for him, his mind already occupied with the promise of a well-earned curry bun.

He’s interrupted by a sharp gasp. It’s immediately followed by a muted thump and he catches himself just a little too late. He whirls around, a bullet of concentrated panic digging into him, his damned shirt still bunched up around his elbows. A wide-eyed, open-mouthed Hinata stares back at him. His phone is on the floor where he dropped it in shock and his Karasuno jacket is clutched in his hands.

“What – what happened to your back?”

The look on his face says he’s very much aware of what happened to his back. Nothing else but Hanahaki leaves scars that reveal how broken and stupid you were to pour everything you had into one person only to be rejected. Suddenly Hinata knows this entirely new side of him and it’s mortifying. He’s never felt this small and exposed before and it takes all his self-control not to grab his stuff and bolt out the door. Instead he looms over him with all his imposing height and drops his voice.

“Tell anyone and you’re _dead_.”

Hinata swallows, his complexion a pasty shade of grey. It’s not fear that Kageyama picks up from him, but rather a tidal wave of emotions that shift so fast they’re hard to distinguish from each other. Something in the back of Kageyama’s throat grows and tickles, so much that he’s convinced the hydrangeas are back for a moment. It’s nausea, he realizes; nausea mirrored from Hinata. Maybe he hates the sight of scars. Maybe he’s just squeamish.

“Kageyama, I –”

“ _Promise_ me you won’t tell anyone,” Kageyama grits out, and his heart is hammering so hard it feels like the ground is trembling beneath him.

Hinata blinks at him, his forehead creasing into a frown, but then he nods, quickly, quietly.

“Okay. I promise.”

**

Hinata keeps his promise but the clubroom incident definitely changed something. On the outside he’s the same as always. On the inside however there’s confused turmoil. Kageyama would’ve been able to tell the difference even without his empath abilities.

At first he misinterprets it. He mistakes it for concern on his behalf, panic for his reputation and well-being, and it takes a while before he recognizes it for what it is. Hinata worries – but he worries about himself. It’s an inward emotion, one that absorbs everything and then dissolves before it starts all over again.

It doesn’t sit well with Kageyama. Hinata is all about running and winning and charging ahead, and he’s used to latching onto his endless enthusiasm and annoying positivity. It’s unsettling when all that vitality is replaced by a void. And as much as Kageyama claims he can’t stand him, he also considers him his closest friend. Maybe even his best friend, although he’ll be ashes in an urn before he ever admits that to anyone.

He’s been soaking up all kinds of emotions every day for months now, from classmates and teammates alike – the broken pieces of disappointment, the bitter candy of pettiness, the free fall of a crush. Sometimes these invading emotions overstay their welcome, like a forgotten tag on a new sweatshirt, keeping him up at night. And yet somehow it’s Hinata’s vague worries that bother him the most.

Kageyama of all people should’ve realized it wasn’t right.

He’s stepping onto the balcony outside the clubrooms one morning when a wall of fear appears out of nowhere and stops him dead in his tracks. It’s so intense it knocks him out of balance and he staggers, fumbling for something to hold on to. It’s still early and save for a couple of crows circling overhead, the school grounds are deserted. There’s no one else there… except the feeling is reaching him all the way from the volleyball clubroom.

Kageyama hurries towards the closed door, the disconnected fear growing with each step he takes, and when he grabs for the handle it’s the same as being electrocuted.

Hinata is there, alone. He’s facing away from the door, doubled over with one hand covering his mouth, the same thing he always does when his stomach aches. His shoulders are trembling, twitching convulsively while a choking sound escapes the back of his throat. He looks like he’s about to be sick but he’s also so very scared. The fear grates on Kageyama’s bones and he instinctively takes a step back. No one reacts this way to a little bit of nausea. It should be discomfort, at most – not pure terror.

“Oi –”

The word is barely out of him before his tongue seizes up, his lips still halfway shaped around an ‘O’.

Hinata’s hand drops from his mouth and a flower petal detaches itself from his fingers. It drifts through the air, joining the swirling sunlit dust before it settles on the tatami mat. It’s yellow and slick with foamy spit.

The terror reaches another level and he coughs again. More golden petals flutter to the ground, followed by a large blossom that lands at his feet with a wet slap. It’s a sunflower.

Kageyama goes ice cold. He finally remembers how to move and rushes into the room, catching Hinata by the shoulders. He turns him around just as another sunflower blooms out of his mouth and drops to the ground. He groans, a small whimper of pain and shame, and he wriggles in Kageyama’s grip, not wanting him to see, to realize what’s going on, even though it’s far too late now.

Kageyama grabs Hinata’s jaw, sinks his fingers hard into the soft flesh of his cheeks and forces him to stay still.

“You – Why the hell is it so bad?” His voice cracks on the last syllable, muting the question into a breathless, panicky stop.

Despite himself Hinata grins into his hand, his smile a forced squeeze against Kageyama’s fingertips. Yellow petals continue to spill from his lips, tumbling down his chest, and his eyes are watering, red-rimmed and exhausted.

“Because I got it bad, I guess.”

**

Hinata’s room is brighter and more lived-in than Kageyama’s. There are several volleyball posters on the walls, some One Piece figures lined up on his bookshelf, a couple of stuffed animals next to his pillow. Even his sheets are patterned and colorful. Kageyama sits perched on Hinata’s bed, his notebook lying open and blank in front of him, and he picks idly at the sunflower print. At least these flowers are fabric only.

Hinata pushes away from his desk, where he’s also been trying (and equally failing) to do his homework.

“The bedding is Natsu’s,” he points out. He must have misinterpreted Kageyama’s gloomy expression for ridicule because with an embarrassed mutter he adds, “Looks stupid, I know.”

He plops down next to him on the bed and the mattress bounces a little. The movement nudges one of Kageyama’s textbooks to the floor, where it flops open at a random chemistry problem.

“I’m hungry.” He yawns and stretches his arms above his head. “Wanna take a break and eat something?”

Kageyama hesitates, not really paying attention. He traces the outline of one of the flowers over and over again until his eyes stop focusing and his vision becomes a yellow, hazy blob.

“This… thing,” he begins uncertainly. “It’s gonna affect your playing.”

There’s a heavy pause before Hinata replies, “Is that what you’re worried about?”

 _It’s not_ , Kageyama thinks against a spark of frustration. _It’s not about volleyball but it’ll be the first thing to go and after that you’ll be gone forever and I won’t be able to deal with that._

He doesn’t know how to put those thoughts into words so he just shrugs defensively.

“I meant in the long run, obviously.”

“I know.”

Asking how Hinata handles his new disease is counterproductive in Kageyama’s opinion. He knows it’s impossible to cope with it; it’s either reciprocated or removed and that’s all there is to it. He doesn’t have any helpful advice to offer on this.

He also already knows how Hinata feels. Underneath all his expected worry and fear there’s also something else, an odd resistance. It’s like an animal shying away, an emotion that keeps retreating into the shadows, all murky and green around the edges. Hinata is holding something back, deliberately. It doesn’t seem like a good thing so Kageyama doesn’t push. He bumps his toe against the corner of his textbook and resumes tracing the sunflower pattern.

“When are you gonna… get it uprooted?”

The question hangs awkwardly between them, fragile and unfinished, until Hinata leans against his pillow and sighs.

“Don’t know.”

“How can you not know?” Kageyama looks up with a frown. “In the end it’s gonna kill you.”

“Not if my feelings are reciprocated.”

“And if they’re not?”

A small arrow of hurt hits Kageyama square in the chest. It fades on its way through his body and eventually disappears. He hopes he didn’t say anything wrong. He’s just stating facts.

“It’s manageable for now,” Hinata says evasively. “I can still play and stuff. I mean, you went through it, you know what it’s like.”

“I _do_ know what it’s like,” Kageyama snaps. “That’s why I’m asking you to do something about it.”

“But uprooting is gonna mess with everything! I won’t be able to fall in love next time.”

“There won’t even be a next time if it kills you first, dumbass!”

Hinata huffs and crosses his arms, and there’s still that small trace of hurt hiding underneath all his stubbornness. “It just doesn’t feel right to give up,” he murmurs, pouting. “Not yet.”

Kageyama releases a fistful of sunflower pattern from his grasp, leaving a small wrinkled patch in the sheets. There’s no point to this; he could just as well be arguing with a brick wall. He gets up, collects his textbooks, and shoulders his bag.

“No one’s worth loving that much.”

“So you don’t really know what it’s like after all,” Hinata replies quietly.

Later that night Kageyama dreams about the sunflowers in Hinata’s ribcage. The stems are coiled so tightly around his heart that it eventually breaks into pieces and dissolves, like crumbly chalk.

He wakes up out of breath and with a dull pain in his faded scars.

**

“I’ll tell you if you tell me.”

Hinata’s suggestion almost sounds like a confession – or a challenge. He offers it to Kageyama on the way home and when the rest of the team has dispersed, right after they’ve passed Sakanoshita (unfortunately sold out for curry buns).

There’s some touch-and-go to his words, as if he’s been thinking about them very carefully but still has doubts. Kageyama squirms unwillingly and digs his hands deeper into his pockets, resisting Hinata’s sudden nervousness. There’s something about his faltering bravery that makes him uneasy.

“If I tell you what?”

“Who you blossomed for.”

There’s a moment of silence, only filled by the rattling wheels of Hinata’s old bike. Kageyama’s heart sinks and settles like a brick in his gut. He knows he’s projecting heavily but those words hold so much potential bitterness. He never considered his infection a blossoming process; he was just sick, plain and simple.

But if Hinata wants to know who he suffered for then he might as well. It doesn’t matter now. Maybe it’ll even help.

“Kunimi,” he says and looks away.

“Kunimi…?” Hinata repeats the name in confusion before he suddenly remembers. He stares up at him, wide-eyed. “Wait – you mean _Seijoh_ Kunimi? Turnip-head’s friend??”

“Yeah.”

“Oh… Wow.”

The initial shock settles and is replaced by a punch of jealousy. It’s brief and rushes through Kageyama in one deep inhale, leaving him a little guilty for some reason. Next to him Hinata clutches the handlebars of his bike, his knuckles white.

“So did you… um… tell him?”

The question comes with a clearly concerned blush but Kageyama just shrugs off his embarrassment.

“I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because it took barely a month until my condition was so bad I couldn’t do anything.”

The spinning bike wheel slows down before coming to a full stop. They’ve reached the intersection at the foot of the mountain and Hinata has turned pale under the streetlights.

“The doctor said it varies,” Kageyama continues, “but getting infected while you’re a teenager is worse because you’re still developing. It clashes with hormones and all that shit. I don’t really get it but that’s what they said. Probably gonna stunt your growth as well if you keep wasting time, dumbass.”

There’s no reliable source for that last claim; he just wants Hinata to make up his mind already and _live_ through this. He’d tell him anything that could possibly nudge him in the right direction but it’s a stubborn tug of war. The muddy tension around Hinata’s resistance grows stronger despite the things he’s being told. He’s digging his heels into the ground, refusing to listen.

“Look, I’m cured, so whoever it was for me doesn’t matter,” Kageyama says, frustrated. “But _you_ should be fixing this instead of talking about it. It’s not my business anyway, who you’re pining for.”

“What if I wanted to tell you?”

“What if I don’t care?”

The sting of hurt is louder than the silence. Kageyama has to take a moment to make sure that the feeling in his chest isn’t real physical pain. Hinata glares at him, his furious expression not matching the heartbroken emotion he radiates, and he swings his leg over his bike.

“ _Fine_ ,” he bites out, a glimpse of tears in his eyes. “Then you don’t deserve to know.”

**

The next morning Kageyama drags himself off to practice with barely a couple of minutes to spare. Truth be told he doesn’t really feel like showing up. He’d much rather lie down in the nearest flowerbed and sink into the damp soil, disappear into the earth. It’d be less awkward that way.

He kicks sullenly at a small stone in his path and watches it bounce along the pavement before it rolls into the gutter. It rained heavily overnight and it left the air thick with misty dew. The lilacs along the road are soaked through, forced to bend under the strain, and the cracks in the asphalt are filled with muddy water. He kicks another pebble into an oily puddle, disrupting the blurry rainbow that had formed in it. They can probably expect another rain shower in the afternoon, judging from the new set of dark clouds on the horizon, and Kageyama realizes he forgot to bring his umbrella.

He also forgot that Hinata typically doesn’t hold grudges.

Despite their argument he acts the same as usual and doesn’t look any worse for wear. Kageyama has to admit he’s hiding it well, this slow suffocation of his. He excuses himself during practice as if Kageyama won’t notice, and one of these days he’s going to accidentally clog up a toilet with the garden he keeps expelling from his throat, but he does hide it well.

He can’t hide his emotions, though.

When Hinata seeks him out around lunchtime it’s the anxiety that hits him first. Kageyama senses it long before he appears in the door. He pretends to be unperturbed and continues writing in his volleyball journal as Hinata approaches his desk, although he can’t help but notice the earth green stain on his shirt, near the collar. He probably hasn’t even had his lunch yet.

“So I thought about what you said yesterday,” he says, straight to the point, his voice borderline confrontational.

“And?”

“And I’ve decided to go through with it. The uprooting.”

Kageyama’s pen stills and he looks up, surprised. “Really?”

“Yeah. I still have to make an appointment but I’ll get it done.”

Something tight and heavy lodges itself into the space between his scars. He writhes in his seat, suddenly inexplicably uncomfortable. The anxiety he felt earlier, the nervously beating heart and the racing pulse – that was all Hinata’s. But the discomfort he’s experiencing right now belongs to _him_. If he didn’t know any better he would’ve called it disappointment.

Kageyama quickly decides he must be misinterpreting. It’s all gotten tangled up with the surprise, he’s sure. This is good news. Hinata chose wisely and soon they can play volleyball again like they used to. They can continue being friends. He’s not going to lose him over some silly love interest.

“O-okay,” he replies stupidly. “Um… Great.”

Hinata’s expression softens, a smile pulling at the corner of his lips. In one swift movement he reaches out and taps Kageyama’s wrist, only once and very gently; the casting of a small, insignificant spell.

“It’s you, by the way.”

Facing a moment like this is new to Kageyama. Maybe it catches him off guard because he never reached this stage himself. Maybe that’s why it feels like he’s stepped over the yellow line and now the train is rushing past him at top speed, merely inches away from the tip of his nose.

His hand twitches and the kanji that had already started out wonky is interrupted by a long, jagged stroke that doesn’t belong anywhere. The word has turned into something else, the same way this situation has suddenly turned into something else.

“Me?” he repeats numbly.

“Yep,” Hinata nods. “I’m in love with you. Or I _was_ ,” he corrects himself. “However you wanna look at it.”

He melts into his usual bright smile and Kageyama realizes that he’s given up. Hinata never gives up on anything, that’s not like him at all. Kageyama doesn’t want him to do it but he can’t exactly turn around now and argue his decision. He’s just left wondering how they ended up this way.

“Hey, don’t look like that!” His partner laughs, mistaking his disappointment for guilt. “It’s not your fault! Just wait a little longer and then I’ll hit all your tosses properly – I promise!”

With that he runs back to his classroom, seemingly pleased with his new promise but reeking of anxiety all the same. Kageyama follows his retreating back, his vision stuck in a motion blur, and once again he can’t believe he failed to see this coming.

**

Those who tend to speak warmly about Hanahaki are the ones who were paid back in requited love. Most others develop an aversion for their respective flowers.

Kageyama always hated his hydrangeas.

The pamphlet he received in preparation for his surgery informed him that most infections result in uprooting; an overwhelming ninety percent of them. The ministry of health strongly encourages uprooting, despite the side effects. Common side effects include losing the ability to love someone romantically for the rest of your life.

The pamphlet said nothing about the flowers specifically, only that they’re individually different and often connected to the victim’s personality. It’s always the same outcome no matter the flower type, whether you’re spewing roses or lilies or bluebells. The person’s emotions are drained, helping the flowers bloom, and in the end it overwhelms the physical system. That’s all there is to it, scientifically.

Kageyama knows there are different kinds of hydrangeas. His were blue, which just happen to be the saddest among them. Blue hydrangeas symbolize the cold bitterness of the earth and the apologetic core of one’s heart. He doesn’t know why he was stuck coughing up apologies, like he should be sorry for falling in love.

He swivels his desk chair, the cold light of his laptop flooding his darkened room. He’s looked up Hinata’s flowers the same way he looked up his own. In contrast to hydrangeas, sunflowers are happy flowers. They symbolize admiration and loyalty. Growing sunflowers follow the sun around, facing it at all times in order to soak up as much light as possible. There’s no other flower out there that Hinata could possibly have suffered from.

Kageyama falls asleep at his desk agonizing over flower types. He vividly dreams of a single flower blossoming inside his ribcage – except it’s not the usual hydrangea. It’s a sunflower, big and bright and warm. The petals curl around him, long leaves embracing his beating heart, as though he’s the sun.

He wakes up from his dream with a start. He clutches his chest, presses his palm against the spot where the sunflower blossomed the brightest, and a realization surfaces in his mind. Maybe his shameful first love was meant to be like that. Maybe that’s why he grew apologetic flowers; so he’d know how it feels when he tells his last love how much he regrets rejecting him.

**

It’s hard to put an epiphany into words, a lot harder than expected. He’s supposed to respond to Hinata’s sincere feelings, feelings he was willing to die for at one point, and Kageyama has never been particularly eloquent. It cuts much deeper than a simple change of mind and he knows this. It scares him to think he might have missed his window entirely.

He wrestles with different approaches but always ends up with the words trapped on his tongue, along with the phantom sunflower in his chest. He watches Hinata excuse himself during practice, watches him miss their toss combinations, watches him sleep through lunch. The timing is never right and Kageyama starts and stops his confession several times without moving along. In the end the school day is over and he’s barely said a word to Hinata at all. He remains on the verge of something he doesn’t know how to face.

“My surgery is next week, on Monday.” Hinata is the one who breaks the silence, on their walk home. “My uprooting, I mean.”

Kageyama’s stomach lurches. “That’s… real soon.”

“Yeah, it’s great, isn’t it?” Hinata laughs nervously, struggles to pass it off as a light remark. “I need to get a permission for absence but –”

“Cancel it.”

The words tumble out of him, finally. It’s not what he wanted to say but at least he’s addressing it. Hinata stops in his tracks, the bike grinding to a halt next to him, breaks squeaking.

“What?”

“Cancel it,” Kageyama repeats, louder this time, his mouth dry. “Your uprooting.”

“Why would I do that…?” Hinata glares at him as though he just sprouted a second head, making him double offended. “Cancelling it won’t change anything, you idiot!”

“No, that’s not what I –”

“Why would you say such a thing to me _now_? I thought you were happy for me!”

“Hinata –”

“Do you want me to die from this after all?”

Anger rips into the space between them, stirring up a storm of confusion and fear, and Kageyama can already tell that the situation is about to escalate. Hinata is terrified – of his condition, of the uprooting, of ending up abandoned and rejected – and Kageyama is guilty of it. He spent the whole day constantly backing out when he should’ve been brave enough to admit he’s in love. If he hadn’t convinced himself so early on that they were irreparably out of sync then he could’ve spared them both of this.

So he does what his instinct tells him to do; he reaches out and pulls Hinata closer. The bike rattles to the ground and his startled protest is muffled against Kageyama’s jacket. He embraces him tightly, seeks out his warmth and his heartbeat, and for once he focuses on his own feelings. He knows it’s still there, the sunflower he dreamed about yesterday.

“I mean, you can stop blossoming.”

“Huh?”

“You can stop blossoming for me.”

“You can’t just _say_ –” Hinata starts to pull away, irritated. “That’s not how it works –”

“I love you,” Kageyama whispers into his hair. “And I’m sorry, for not accepting your feelings sooner.”

Hinata goes quiet for a long time. He’s tense in his arms, so tense he’s trembling, barely even breathing. It’s like holding onto a dam that’s about to burst any second but Kageyama refuses to let go.

“How can you know?” he asks weakly. “Those feelings disappeared with your uprooting. So how can you know?”

“Because I do,” Kageyama simply replies. “I just needed someone to help me recognize it, I think. And no one ever said those feelings were impossible to recover, no matter how unlikely. Isn’t that how requited love is supposed to work anyway?”

“The most powerful cure…” Hinata mutters, quoting a well-known line from the Hanahaki pamphlet.

With a small sob he relaxes against him, his shoulders lowering, his hands finding purchase around his waist. There not a trace of sadness in him anymore. Instead, Kageyama picks up on relief and joy, on the tentative excitement of facing the rest of high school, even the rest of their lives like this, _together_.

“I didn’t wanna tell you at first,” he admits unsteadily. “You’ve suffered through this already and I was so afraid I’d burden you. But if I didn’t say anything I’d explode. That’s just –”

“– who you are,” Kageyama finishes with a smile. “Yeah, I know. And it’s fine. Congrats on being in the exclusive ten percent.”

Hinata breathes out a laugh. “They gave you the same pamphlet, huh?” The grip around his waist tightens and he pauses, concerned. “I don’t think I feel any different, though.”

“Of course not, dumbass, withering takes time.” Kageyama snorts and flicks him lightly on the forehead. “At least sleep on it.”

He’s struck by a moment’s bravery and carefully cups Hinata’s face in his hands. He slowly leans down, absolutely certain that this is the natural progression of things, but is promptly rejected by a palm turned upward and a panic-stricken expression.

“What...?”

“Well, I –” Gravel crunches between them, arms untangling from the embrace. “After practice I… you know.”

“You threw up more flowers?” Kageyama pouts, unimpressed. “I’m aware of that. I’m stupid, not blind.”

“But…” Hinata takes half a step back, cheeks reddening. “Don’t you think… it’s a little gross?”

The single sunflower within Kageyama’s chest opens up and blooms freely, expanding with tingly, soaring warmth, and he knows for sure that this really is his person. He ignores Hinata’s doubts and follows his half step, covering the distance between them until he can smile against his soft lips, until he can taste the pollen and the sunlight on his tongue.

**

Hinata’s sunflowers may have withered away but there’s nothing about him that implies anything ever died out. He’s still blossoming, in a good way.

He races Kageyama to the clubroom like he always does, wins by half a length like he _almost_ always does, and when he turns around to face him his smile is wide and radiant and joyful.

Something new sprouts to life, something that winds its way around their wrists and binds their linked hands together – something that can’t be uprooted.

**Author's Note:**

> Mom said it’s my turn on the popular flower trope.
> 
> This isn’t the most words I’ve written for a fic but it’s the most WORDS I’ve written for a fic, if you know what I mean. Fun fact: this was two totally unrelated wips to begin with, one empath AU and one Hanahaki AU, but I didn’t have developed enough ideas to make full fics out of them separately. So since I like living on the edge I figured why not smash the two AUs together and see what I end up with and this is it. Hope you liked it!


End file.
